


Bury My Heart on the Coals

by blackbird



Category: Bourne Legacy (2012), Bourne Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:06:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackbird/pseuds/blackbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>so give me hope in the darkness that i will see the light // 'cause oh that gave me such a fright</i>
  <br/>
  <i>but i will hold on with all of my might // just promise me we'll be alright</i>
</p><p>Aaron and Marta - this is what happens after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bury My Heart on the Coals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eleanor_lavish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish/gifts).



> Many thanks to my beta/cheerleader, Schuyler, who constantly assured me this didn't suck.
> 
> Eleanor, I don't know if this is quite what you had in mind, but I hope you like it anyway. (We are the best at secrets.)
> 
> Title and summary lyrics from Mumford and Sons.

The ship’s galley is the furthest thing from sterile Marta can imagine, but there’s nowhere else with hot water. Aaron sits up on the table, chin on his chest. The blood is still oozing sluggishly from his thigh.

She washes her hands and tears a length of cloth into strips. The suture kit from Aaron’s backpack has supplies enough for his leg and his shoulder. He’s lucky, she thinks.

“This is gonna sting,” she says and instead of wincing as she swipes the antiseptic over it, he grins. “What?”

“Nothing,” he answers, “just thinking. This is more like it. Me sitting on a table and you about to stick me with something sharp.”

Something about that makes her hand falter. She’s never going to be a doctor again, not the way she was. Everything she’s ever known is - 

“Guess it’s a good thing I paid attention when I did those optional trauma rotations,” she says, holding the skin together to sew him up with precise stitches. He’d already dug the bullet out.

“I’m sorry, Marta,” he says quietly. “I - I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head. “Nothing for you to be sorry for. Can you stay still while I do your shoulder or will I need to sedate you?” 

He lets her get away with lightening the mood, nodding. “Scout’s honor.”

The laugh that bubbles up has a little tinge of hysteria, but it’s better than crying, so she lets it out. Her hands tremble and Aaron grabs them. His palms have calluses, but no scars.

“It’s the adrenaline wearing off. Let’s get this finished up and after we talk to the captain, we’ll figure out the sleeping arrangements. It’ll help.” He must not be very convinced by the look on her face. “Trust me, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Hold still,” she says, exhaling a big breath. As she pushes the needle in, she can’t help but wonder if he’s going to have a scar.

*

_There are gunshots and Marta is running in the woods. She can smell her house burning, but she’s wearing her lab coat. In the darkness of the trees, she knows she must stand out like a beacon. She struggles to strip it off, but it gets caught at her wrists and she falls. There’s dirt in her mouth and the ground is vibrating under her cheek. They are coming for her - Donald, those agents from the house, faceless men in black. They are coming and she can’t get to her feet._

“Marta, wake up.”

Gasping, her eyes snap open. Aaron is kneeling next to her, hand on her shoulder. It’s dark and the air is briney. She’s on a ship. She’s not in the woods. The only one with a gun here is Aaron.

“You were having a nightmare,” he says, pushing her hair off her forehead. “I tried - I didn’t want to scare you.” He’s biting his lip, like she might be angry at him.

She sits up, the thin blanket twisted around her bare legs. His eyes flick down and the interest there is clear, but not how she’s used to it. “No, you didn’t. Thanks,” she says, curling her hand around his. “What time is it?”

“Early, a little after six. I told Datu I’d help haul in the nets. Hope fish is okay for breakfast,” he says with a little chuckle. There are lines around his eyes, little bursts of age. She never noticed them when he came into the lab. Probably because she never looked too closely at his face. He was meant to be Outcome 5, an experiment. Not a person.

With her free hand, she cups his cheek, running the pad of her thumb over the thin skin. Aaron holds still, trusts her not to hurt him. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“For what?”

“For never asking your name.”

His mouth curls up in a rueful smile. “You were just doing what you were told. We all were.”

“But not anymore. No more taking orders.” She leans down and presses her mouth against his carefully. His hand flexes around hers and it takes a few second before he kisses her back. But it stays gentle, almost chaste. 

He breaks it, sitting back on his heels. Marta’s afraid she’s pushed too far, been too forward, but he smiles at her. “Go back to sleep. I’ll come and get you when we’re ready to cook.” 

“All right,” she says, letting him guide her back down. He squeezes her hand before he goes and she can’t help but notice that he’s not even limping. The weak morning sun defines the slope of his shoulders as he goes out the door. A few minutes later, she’s able to let the ship’s rocking lull her back to sleep.

*

They’ve been on the water a week when he taps the map. 

“We’re going to get off in Hong Kong. I have a contact there, someone discreet. We can lay low and then I was thinking maybe after that, Australia.” He looks at her shyly. “I’ve only ever been for...work.”

“I’ve never been at all,” she says, turning the map to look at it for herself. “Maybe I can learn to surf.”

Aaron laughs. “Seeing that would be worth the trip alone.”

Marta scowls at him, but it doesn’t last long. “You’re horrible. I was very athletic in college.”

“Uh-huh, I’m sure,” he teases. It looks like he’s about to say something else when Bantau comes running up, chattering at him in Tagalog. Aaron replies and gets up. “I’ll be back.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says. It’s become their little joke. He darts in and kisses her, fingers trailing over her jaw as he pulls away.

*

Hong Kong is loud and teeming with people. Marta can feel the tension seeping back into both of them. Aaron’s sentences become clipped, almost like orders. His back is ramrod straight as they navigate through the strange clash of European and Asian architecture, taking what seems to be an overcomplicated route to a nondescript apartment building in a busy neighborhood. He punches in a code and the door swings open.

“Third floor,” he says, leading her past the elevator to the narrow stairs. When they get there, he picks the locks on the door marked “B” and ushers her inside. There’s an alarm beeping and he silences it. “It’s secure, go ahead.”

She goes down the hall to the living room. The furniture is very basic and everything looks new, white and beige. Her shirt is tattered and her jeans smell like salt water. When she looks back at the door, Aaron’s watching her.

“Shower?” she asks hopefully.

“Yeah, of course. Bathroom’s to the left, through the bedroom,” he says, snapping back from wherever he was. “I’ll find you something to wear.”

The hot water feels like heaven pounding down against the back of her neck. She realizes as she’s washing her hair that the last time she had a proper shower was before they left for Manila. It seems like months ago. There’s a package of razors on the sink, so she uses one to shave her legs before she gets out. Wrapping herself in a towel, she opens the door to find Aaron sitting on the floor, leaning against the closet door.

“What are you doing?” 

He blinks, eyes focusing on her. “Waiting for you. I didn’t want to mess up the bed.” 

She’s suddenly very aware of everything - the noise from the street outside, the gyrating of the ceiling fan, the dampness of her hair on her shoulders. Aaron rolls to his feet and when she reaches for him, he ducks away from her hand.

“I’m filthy and you’re not. There’s a t-shirt and some pants on the bed,” he says before he shuts the bathroom door. The water comes on and Marta doesn’t know what to do.

*

She’s been through the kitchen and found nothing but instant coffee crystals, a bag of rice, and a box of energy bars. The living room proves slightly more informative when she finds the envelope of photos taped to the underside of the coffee table. It’s private, she knows that, but she can’t help herself.

There are three of them, the edges worn from someone handling them. The first one is a of a young, blonde woman. She’s laughing, her hands up like she’s trying to ward the camera off. It looks like it was taken in a coffee shop somewhere. The next one is the same woman looking straight into the camera and smiling like she’s got a secret that only the photographer could know. In the last one, she’s holding the hands of what appears to be a little boy as they walk through a snowy park.

Marta’s stomach drops. Aaron has a wife, a family maybe. How did he hide them from Outcome? How is he going to get back to them? Are they in Australia? And if they are, what is she going to do on her own?

“Those are private,” Aaron says harshly, snatching them from her hands. She didn’t even hear him come out of the bedroom. He’s dressed in clean clothes, boots in his other hand.

“Is that...June Monroe?” she asks.

Aaron’s face drains of color and there’s a blank hardness to his expression. It’s easy to forget what he really is, what he was trained to do. Marta clenches her hands, fingernails cutting into her palms.

“No,” he says, voice flat. “She was never June Monroe.” He snatches his jacket from the back of the chair. “I’m going out. If I’m not back by sundown, call the number near the phone in the bedroom. Don’t leave until I come back.”

The door slams hollowly and she slumps back into the couch, curling her legs under her. There is a hot, panicky pressure in her chest, but she refuses to give in. Grabbing the remote from the floor under the table, she turns on the television. When she finds a channel in English, she leaves it there and tries to think about what she’s going to do when he comes back.

*

It’s dark when she wakes up this time. BBC World News is on and there are a stack of plastic containers piled on the table. Aaron is eating noodles with a pair of chopsticks and reading a French newspaper. 

“You read French?” she asks stupidly, rubbing her eyes.

“I speak French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and Mandarin. My Japanese is okay and my Hindi is passable. “There’s plenty, if you’re hungry,” he says, pushing a fork toward her. “No fish, I promise.”

Once she starts opening the containers, Marta realizes she’s ravenous. There are glass noodles in a spicy red sauce, perfectly steamed dumplings, and shredded beef and vegetables. After eight days of mostly fish, rice, and porridge, she’s so happy to eat anything that’s not that it takes her a few minutes to realize Aaron is staring at her.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he says, but it looks like he’s holding back a laugh. “You want something to drink?” He grabs his own empty glass and goes to the kitchen. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I got sparking water, mango juice, Coke, and beer.”

“Beer is fine,” she calls out, taking another forkful of noodles. He brings one back for both of them and settles on the couch next to her again. The drone of the news covers the silence. 

“I can only speak Spanish and a little Italian. I can read German, mostly subtitles from the opera,” she offers, spearing a snow pea. “We’re trading information, right? Fair’s fair.”

She knows he must be suspicious. It’s against everything he’s been trained to do to tell anyone anything that was the actual truth. But if this is going to work at all, they’re going to have to know each other.

“I hate gin,” Aaron offers.

“Rum is the drink of the devil,” she counters. “If I even smell it, I get queasy.”

That does make him laugh and things feel less tense. The rest of the night passes easier and when Aaron yawns, she shoves him gently toward the bedroom. There are a couple of shopping bags near the closet and he gives her a strange, almost embarrassed look.  
“I picked up a few things for you. And me too, but I have some clothes here. Just a couple days worth and then you can go out and get whatever you want.” 

She kneels down and pulls out two pairs of dark jeans, a couple of plain v-neck t-shirts, a bra, and three pairs of cotton bikini underwear. They’re all the right sizes. “Thank you, Aaron. I hadn’t even thought about this.”

“Well, you know,” he says, shuffling his feet. “I’ll just change and rack out on the couch.”

“What? No,” she says, getting to her feet. “I don’t - I’d rather we stayed together.” There’s a pleading note in her voice that she can’t help.

“Okay,” Aaron says. “I’m going to go double check the alarm and the locks.”

She pulls the duvet back, flips the top sheet back and forth a little. The bed looks like it’s never been slept in. Maybe it hasn’t, maybe he’s only slept on the couch, television as background noise as he decompressed from whatever mission his handlers had send him on the last time he was in Hong Kong. They obviously don’t know about this place or she and Aaron wouldn’t be here. Marta kicks off the too big sweatpants she’d been wearing and crawls to the far side of the bed. Aaron will want to sleep on the outside.

Marta stares at the ceiling, listening to Aaron’s quiet footsteps in the other room. The pillow is soft and she tries not to think about when she bought the new pillows and the expensive mattress for the house in Maryland. She was so excited - it felt like such an adult purchase, an indulgence she would never have been able to afford before the lab.

There’s only a tiny bit of light bleeding through the blinds when he comes back. Marta watches as he gets undressed, stripping down to his t-shirt and boxer briefs before getting into bed. There’s enough space that they aren’t tangled together like in the berth they shared on the ship. 

Under the covers, she finds his hand. “Tell me about her, Aaron.”

His throat bobs as he swallows hard. His fingers tighten around hers and she slides closer to him. If she didn’t know better, she might think he was having a panic attack. But his breathing slows down, pulse evens out after a minute or so. When he turns to look at her, Marta can see the curve of his cheek, those little crinkle lines again.

“Her name was Stephanie. She used to work in a diner in Chicago near where I lived. Operatives had designated home bases, places where we went back to keep up the pretenses of a life. I started going to the diner a few blocks away. It was greasy spoon kind of place, open twenty four hours a day, lots of college kids, you know.”

“Yeah,” she says softly. “There was a place like that near my last place in Bethesda. I liked it a lot.”

“I kept late hours, remember I told you I had trouble sleeping for a while?”

Marta does. It was a side effect of prepping the operatives for viraling off the greens. They had upped the doses for the eight months leading up to it and one of the milder side effects was insomnia. It was the only thing Aaron ever complained about.

“So, I usually was there late, reading, whatever. Stephanie worked the late shift, so we got to know each other. She was working her way through school, living with her mom and her son.”

“You were - were you involved with her?” 

Aaron gives her a pained look. “Not like you think. When I joined the Army, I was right out of a state home. Girls weren’t really lining up for a kid like me. The guys in my unit used to take me out with them, but I wasn’t into paying for it. It seemed...wrong. Once I was in the Program, there were regs against having attachments to people. We were encouraged to do what we needed to do to keep ourselves running at maximum efficiency, but nothing permanent. We couldn’t allow ourselves to become compromised.” 

He looks pained again, shaky like he was in Manila. Marta rolls onto her side and lays her free hand on his chest, rubbing in circles over his sternum. She’d done that while he was in the worst part of the delirious fever and it seemed to help comfort him a little.

“Her ex, Dylan’s dad, used to smack her around. She was shy, quiet, but really smart. I was away often enough that it was fine to take things slow. I didn’t know how to do it any other way, I guess.”

She can make out the way his jaw is clenched, like telling her this is as uncomfortable as an exam. It’s not hard to imagine him sitting across the diner counter from this woman, giving easy compliments, trying to tease a smile out of her. The way he might duck his head, study with her that careful look that must have made her wonder what he was thinking. He’s given it to Marta enough times over the past few weeks. If the intensity behind it then was anything like it is now, she doesn’t know how anyone else stood it.

Aaron rolls onto his side to face her. He’s worrying his bottom lip. She wonders if that’s a real tell, one they could breed out of him, or it’s something he only did as Aaron Cross. 

“When I was sick, after the greens, she came and took care of me. Brought me soup, sat with me. That was when I started thinking about it, collecting passports, ID’s.”

“You were going to run,” she says. There was someone else who’d tried it a year and half ago, just before all the trouble with Jason Bourne started up again. Marta didn’t do the post mortem on the body, but she’d read the report. It wasn’t pretty.

“I wanted to. I thought we could start a new life, the three of us. I was still working out what to do about Dylan and school and what to tell her. I came back to Chicago after being in Dubai for a month. She was dead. Killed by a drunk driver. Allegedly.”

“But you clearly don’t believe that,” she prods and a hardness settles over his features.

“No, I don’t. Byer - I don’t know if you ever met him - he called us the sin eaters, the ones that took the evil in the world onto us. But she wasn’t - she didn’t have anything to do with that. At least I was able to make sure Dylan could stay with his grandmother instead of his piece of shit father.”

Marta cups his jaw, pulling him in close. The kiss is meant to comfort him, but he’s stiff, tense. “Aaron, you can’t know for certain Outcome had anything to do with her death. It could’ve have been a random accident.”

He closes his eyes and rolls away from her, facing the door. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay?”

Marta swallows and nods, even though he can’t see her. She starts to reach out for him, but she pulls herself back. “Sure. Goodnight, Aaron.”

“Night.”

*

They've been in Hong Kong for two weeks. Marta learns the streets around the apartment - flat, she’s got to remember to call it a flat. She shops at the market, buys clothes and suitcases for the two of them. In the little salon, she lets a girl who speaks only French cut and lighten her hair. It looks natural, but she hardly recognizes herself in the mirror. And because she’s thinking ahead, she gets a set of passport photos taken before she comes back.

Aaron teaches her how to mask her internet history and how to hack into someone’s e-mail. She’s not good at throwing a punch, but she knows how to block, to use her nails, her elbows if someone gets in too close. He still sometimes disappears during the day and won’t tell her where he’s going, but she trusts that he’s not going to take off without her. 

One afternoon, they get on two trains and bus and end up at an outdoor gun range. Aaron checks out two Glocks and when they get to the far set of targets, he hands one to her.

“What? No, I’m not shooting that thing,” she says, stepping back, hands up.

He points the gun down and grabs her wrist. “You need to get used to it again. It’s for your own protection.”

He doesn’t bother with goggles or headphones. “The noise and the recoil are going to be different now. Adrenaline will help you push past it in a hostile situation, but best you don’t start out that way.”

Flipping it in his hand like a magician, he holds it out to her, wrapping her fingers around the grip. In reality, she knows it’s light for a gun, but feels like it weighs fifty pounds. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she whispers.

“You can,” he promises. They stand behind the firing line and he puts his hand on her hips, squaring them with her feet and her shoulders. “Hold it steady, straight in front of you. Look down the barrel and inhale.”

Marta can feel the heat of his breath on the back of her ear and his thumb is on the bare skin above the waistband of her jeans. She has to blink, get her eyes to focus on the black target and not the way Aaron is pressed up against her back. Hesitantly, she brings the gun up, chest level like she’s seen him do. “Like this?”

“Yeah,” he says, voice patient and even. “Now, disengage the safety. The one you’re going to have won’t have one, but if you’re ever using an unfamiliar weapon, you’ll need to remember that.”

“You say that like I’m going to be using a gun every day,” she says, trying to joke.

It falls flat. “Let’s hope not,” Aaron says. His hands cover hers, getting her fingers in the right places. “When you fire, it’s going to be loud and there’s going to be kickback. Do not ever drop your weapon. Remember that.”

She nods. When he leans in, she leans back unconsciously. They slept curled together on the boat, but now there might as well be an ocean between them.

“Take a breath in, sight the target, and when you exhale, pull the trigger,” he instructs. Marta clears her head and fires.

It is loud and the recoil isn’t bad, but she has to figure out how to compensate for it. She empties the magazine and barely grazes the target.

“Again,” Aaron says, teaching her to reload the gun. He makes her shoot until her arms and shoulders feel like jelly. But by the end of the afternoon, she’s hit the target in the head, the throat, and the knees. 

She’s making dinner when he comes back a few days later from wherever he’s disappeared to. He drops an envelope on the table. “Tickets are booked for two days from now. You should look over all the documentation tonight and if we need to change anything, we can do it before we leave here.”

“Okay,” she replies, filling up their plates. They eat in silence. The ease they had on the boat is long gone and Marta knows that something has to give before they leave here. The mood swings were something they worried about when putting together the post-viral plans for the blues. It’s a shame she’ll never be able to publish the results she’s gotten to see live and in person. 

He clears the table and starts the dishes. Marta pulls the envelope toward her and opens it. There are three sets of passports and ID’s for each of them, blank marriage certificates that match the countries where they have each supposedly respectively lived, bank and credit cards. There’s a couple of professional certifications as well, for him as an English and language teacher, letters of reference attached. Hers are for a physician’s assistant and nurse. 

“You won’t be able to work in a big hospital or a lab,” he says, not looking at her. “But they should hold up for a doctor’s office or something rural. Those places don’t look too closely at things if you’re confident in what you’re doing.”

“Thank you, Aaron. That’s - well, I didn’t really know what I was going to do for money. I can’t keep sponging off you forever, can I?” She flips open the passports that have the plane tickets sticking out of them. “Marilyn Pearson, originally born in Toronto.”

“Father was American, so you have citizenship,” Aaron says, drying his hands. “We met in college and we’re travelling because we’re too restless to settle down.”

“Of course we did,” she says, reaching for his passport, “Joe. Joseph McCoy, from Boston. Marilyn and Joe, that’s cute.”

He laughs and she wants to hold onto that side of him, playful and vital. But neither of them are much good at this. “I heard he used to leave roses at her grave for years after she died,” he says.

“He never got over her,” she says abruptly, thinking of the pictures and June Monroe, the way he felt pressed up against her at the range, how he tosses and turns in the bed next to her at night.

“Marta,” he starts, but she shakes her head.

“Peter wanted me to leave Sterisyn, quit my job, and leave the program. He begged me for months. But I couldn’t. It was everything I’d been working toward since I was an undergrad. Even if I couldn’t publish or teach, I had the work and it was, God, Aaron, it was amazing. I came home one night and he was just gone. Packed his things and left me in a half finished house. The day before the shooting, he called to tell me he was getting married to someone else.” 

She stands up because the apartment suddenly feels too small. The walls are closing in. Grabbing her sweater and bag, she goes to the door. Aaron doesn’t try to stop her.

“You’re not the only one with ghosts.”

*

Marta walks for hours. She heads toward the center of the city and it’s not until she’s there that she realizes how late it is. There’s no phone in the apartment and the disposable cell Aaron gave her is still plugged into the charger in the living room. There’s a wad of small bills in the bottom of her bag, so she flags down a taxi and gives an address three train stops from theirs.

When she opens the apartment door, the hall is pitch black. She stands there for a minute, heart in her throat as she panics. What if...

“Roses are red,” a voice says from the dark.

“But they can’t grow in the snowy woods,” she answers, giving the code that she’s alone and unharmed. There’s movement to her left and she hears the door close before Aaron’s pinning her to the wall.

“Marta, you can’t just leave like that, Jesus,” he says. “I don’t have any way to protect you if I don’t...” 

His fingers are digging into her shoulders hard. He doesn’t always remember he’s stronger than he expects to be. But his cheek is pressed to hers, the roughness of his stubble scraping her against the corner of her mouth. 

She never realized that he’s just as afraid of losing her as she is of losing him.

“Aaron,” she says, but the rest of her sentence is lost when he kisses her, hard and messy. His teeth catch her lip and their noses bash together, but she doesn’t care. She just wants him, however she can get him.

She drops her bag and there’s a tearing sound as he struggles to get her sweater off. 

“Shit,” he says and Marta finds herself giggling.

“It’s fine. You can get me a new one,” she says, kissing his jaw. “Bedroom, come on.”

He leads her there without turning the lights on. The blinds are slanted open, letting in the ambient light from the street. She pulls him around to face her.

“Tell me what you want.”

Aaron looks so uncertain and it takes years off his face. “I don’t know - anything. Everything.” He sways in and kisses her again, mouth slanting more carefully over hers this time. 

Marta brings his hands up to the hem of her shirt. “Let’s start here.” He starts to unbutton it, fingers clumsy. She curls her hand around the back of his neck and tries to sync up their breathing. When it’s finally open, she hisses at his cool hands on her bare stomach. It turns to a moan as he cups her breast, thumb rubbing her nipple through the thin cotton.

“Yeah?” he asks, his other hand on her ribs. His calluses are rough and so very different from anyone else she’s ever been with. 

“Uh-huh,” she says, tugging at his t-shirt. “Can I take this off?”

Aaron nods, letting go of her with reluctance to pull it over his head. Marta takes the opportunity to shrug off her own shirt and reaches behind her to unhook her bra. He catches the straps and eases them down her arms.

“You’re really beautiful,” he tells her and for once in her life, she’s sure it’s not a line, not an embellishment. Aaron knows how to lie, but he doesn’t lie to her.

She catches him by the pocket of his jeans and pulls him in close. “So are you,” she answers back, running her hands up and down his back. There aren’t any scars there, despite the fact she knows there should be - the knife wound from Moscow, the shrapnel from before he was Aaron Cross. They’re all gone.

They kiss until she can’t breathe and when she finally pulls away from him, he grunts unhappily. She laughs at the way his nose is scrunched up. 

“We should get the rest of this off and actually use this bed,” she says, pressing her hip into the ridge in the front of his jeans. His mouth drops open and his breath stutters. “You trust me, right?”

“You know I do.”

“Good,” she says, dropping to her knees. She undoes his fly and pulls his jeans and boxer briefs down over his hips. He looks embarrassed as he shuffles from right to left so she can drag them completely off and away. Running her hand up the back of his calf, lingering in the spot behind his knee, she can feel the tension in his muscles, like he’s ready to run.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you naked before,” she reminds him. Every exam, the full work ups - she knows his body as well as he does.

Aaron reached down and touches her cheek. “It’s really not the same thing, is it?”

Marta chuckles, turns her face into his palm and kisses it. “Not at all.” 

There’s no good way to ask him if he’s done this before and there’s a part of her that doesn’t want to know. Because the people that they were before don’t exist anymore. They can’t. This is the start of a new life. Together. 

She wraps her other hand around his cock. Aaron gasps as she thumbs the head, smearing the wetness there. Before she can take him in her mouth, he stops her. 

“Not yet, okay? I just - I want to feel you first. It’s not like we won’t have time.” There’s a flush to his cheeks. She likes it.

Marta gets up and pushes him back to the bed. “Lay back, get comfortable.”

He grins. “Yes, ma’am.”

Getting to her feet, she turns on the lamp next to the bed. In the past, she would insist the lights be off. Her body is far from perfect and she isn’t young anymore. But she wants Aaron to be able to see her. She strips off her jeans first, kicking them off without grace. 

“Marta,” he says, stretching out his hand. “I want to do that.” He pulls her onto the bed next to him, nuzzling her neck as he works his hand beneath her underwear. It’s been awhile and Marta whimpers as he touches her clit lightly, fingertips working her in tight, little circles.

“I thought you hadn’t done this much,” she says, arching up. The heat is spreading everywhere and Marta bucks up, trying to get his fingers lower.

Aaron drags his mouth down the line of her throat. “I haven’t. But I have good instincts.” He does dip them down then, teasing her as he kisses across her the swell of her breasts. “And I’ve watched porn. I’m not a saint.”

“Far from it,” she agrees, shifting her leg so her thigh brushes his cock, leaving a sticky smear. “Take them off, Aaron, please.”

He does, dropping them off the side of the bed. She watches him lick the fingers that had been touching her. It’s strangely hot and Marta doesn’t understand where that thought even came from. But it leads her to let her knees fall open, let him look at her.

“God,” he breathes out. He trails the back of his hand over the thin skin of her inner thigh, like he’s trying to catalogue as many new sensations as he can. When he hits the crease of her leg and hip, he darts in and kisses her there, nipping gently. “I want so much, fuck, I can’t really think straight,” he confesses.

She pulls him up and over her, getting his hips settled between her legs. His cock is hot against her hip and he thrusts, blindly following the friction and sensation. She lets out a throaty laugh that she barely recognizes as belonging to her. Tipping his face up, she’s the one kissing him hard now, sucking at his bottom lip, swallowing the little noises he makes.

“Roll over,” she urges, getting him on his back before she swings her leg over, straddling him. The look of sheer wonder on his face is mesmerizing. She licks her palm before she strokes him this time. He jerks his hips up and grunts. 

“Marta,” he begs.

“I know you’re clean and I am too. I got an IUD a couple of years ago, so we’re okay,” she says, kneeling up. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah, yes,” he answers, grabbing her hand and lacing their fingers together as she sinks down onto him slowly. 

it’s been a little while and Aaron’s thicker than she’s used to. But he feels so good inside her. Marta groans and rolls her hips, trying to get the best angle. Bracing her hand over his shoulder, she rolls her hips, rocking back and forward. Aaron’s eyes are glassy and he’s panting, his face twisted into something that’s half agony, half bliss.

“You with me?”

He blinks and nods, shifting under her so he can thrust up. Pulling her down to his mouth, the way he kisses her is desperate. His hand slips between their bodies so he can massage her clit and it doesn’t take long for Marta feel the pressure building at the base of her spine and radiating up and down. She comes hard, trembling and crying out Aaron’s name into his neck. Her arms give out and she crumples down on top of him.

“I guess I did all right,” he murmurs and she laughs weakly, kissing his shoulder.

“More than,” she replies, shifting up and onto her back. Something wanton washes over her as she spreads her legs for him. “Your turn, I think.”

She doesn’t have to ask him twice. He’s sliding into her, trying to figure out the best rhythm for the both of them. When she drags her nails up his back, he shivers and slams into her harder.

“Just like that,” she whispers. “Come on, Aaron, please.” She tilts her hips up and wraps one leg around him, changing the angle and wringing a string of swear words out of him in several languages. 

“I’m - close,” he says, voice shaking.

“Don’t hold back, then. I can take it,” she promises.

That permission seems to set him off and he pounds into her, grinding against her on every downstroke. It’s enough to set her off again and she curls her fingers into the sheets, straining up to meet him.

Aaron’s breath catches and he stills above, hips moving in firm, short thrusts as he comes. Marta’s hand is on his neck and under her thumb, his pulse is pounding and his shoulders are shaking with fine tremors.

 _I did that_ , she thinks, holding him close until he comes back to himself.

“Sorry, I’m crushing you,” he mumbles, trying to get up, but Marta twists until they’re on their sides. They’re both tacky with sweat, but she doesn’t want to move.

“‘m fine. Just, let’s stay here, okay. For a little while,” she says, tangling their legs together.

Aaron nods, kissing her before he closes his eyes.

It’s the first night he doesn’t sleep facing the door. Marta doesn’t wake up once.


End file.
